


lucky dude, lucky man

by Philipa_Moss



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Fatherhood, Future Fic, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Present sweetness, Some angst, Some hurt/comfort, past trauma, the lightest dusting of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 11:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20173288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philipa_Moss/pseuds/Philipa_Moss
Summary: The day Yevgeny joined the Gay-Straight Alliance, Mickey couldn’t stop crying. It came out of nowhere and wouldn’t stop. It was fucking embarrassing.





	lucky dude, lucky man

The day Yevgeny joined the Gay-Straight Alliance, Mickey couldn't stop crying. It came out of nowhere and wouldn't stop. It was fucking embarrassing. The kid wasn't even gay or any of the other letters; he just wanted to do the right thing. It made Mickey want to claw his own skin off or hug Yev until it hurt them both. He couldn't do either, so he just said, “Whatever, kid,” but the little twerp still smiled like he knew Mickey was proud.

There had been a Gay-Straight Alliance at Mickey's high school, but it was suicide to join. The only kids in it were a pair of don't-give-a-shit dykes and a few straight chicks who were really into anime. Not even Ian joined, and back in those days Ian didn't have the sense God gave a turnip. (Mickey started sounding like his mom's mom, who he barely knew, when he started thinking back to the kid Ian had been. There were just so many ways he could have died.)

Yev's Gay-Straight Alliance wasn't even called that. Gay didn't even cover it any more. Instead, it was called Rainbow Cotillion for Justice or some shit. Coalition. 

“Stonewall was a riot,” Yev said, explaining it.

Mickey said, “Tell the cops I wasn't there.”

That night, after Yev told him and Ian which clubs he was joining and then fucked off to do his homework at the twins', Mickey paced the kitchen. He really wanted a cigarette, but he was trying to quit and the idea of failing, of giving up, of how inevitable it felt that he would, sent him scrambling for the bedroom, like the farther he could get from outdoors, the better he could be.

The problem was, to get to their bedroom he had to pass Yev's, and not for the first time Mickey wondered what it was like to grow up knowing a closed door could stay closed. Or that you could put whatever crap you wanted on your walls and no one would give you shit for it. Or that you wouldn't get hit—that was a big one. Or that you could join the Gay Straight fucking Alliance and live to tell the tale. 

By the time Ian finished the dishes and came looking for him, Mickey had gotten himself mostly under control. He could breathe again, for one thing, and his eyes weren't too red. With any luck, Ian would think he'd been smoking a bowl, not crying like a fucking kid over nothing.

He did flinch when Ian opened the door, even though he knew it was Ian coming, because he was sitting on the floor with his back to the wall and the door was out of the corner of his eye, all right, and it was closed until it wasn't and the wall shook a little.

“Jesus Christ” he said, to cover, only he didn't know what else to say and Ian was already frowning like he knew something was up. 

Still, “I was wondering if you wanted some ice cream,” he said, like Mickey was some sixty year old with slippers and a wife, or a little kid who needed to be bribed.

“Yeah,” said Mickey. He should move. He should get up. But Ian has told him that “should” is the enemy of happiness. It reeks of Ian's therapist. Mickey would know; he'd tagged along a couple times when Ian was particularly sick, just to see if it helped any, and it helped Ian and left Mickey antsy and unsettled. Ian said Mickey probably needed therapy too, that he'd asked his therapist and she said Mickey sounded like he had PTSD, to which Mickey said, fat chance, he'd barely left Chicago in his life, what would he be doing with something you got in the army? But then Ian went to the library and made copies of all these things that basically listed hypothetical scenarios that would give some civilian, give some little kid, PTSD, and every single made up story was, like, straight from the Milkovich family playbook. 

Mickey couldn't breathe. He told Ian he wasn't going. “You know what my dad would say if he knew one of his sons was in fucking therapy? You know what he'd do?”

And Ian said, “Yes, I do know, but, Mick, he's never gonna find out,” and then Mickey had to remember all over again that his dad had gone and died before Mickey had gotten the chance to shoot him in the face himself and feed him to pigs.

So Mickey still didn't want to go to therapy, but the “should” being bad shit checked out. Should please his father. Shouldn't be gay. Should be angry, violent, tough. Should try so hard to fit some mold that all these years later he couldn't even tell what posters he would have put on his wall, given the choice, or what music he would have listened to, or what movies he would have liked. All the same ones, maybe, or maybe not. Maybe in some universe there was a Mickey Milkovich who sang fucking showtunes and, like, knitted.

Instead of getting up, Mickey patted the ground next to him. Vulnerability in general made Mickey want to smash things with a bat, but being vulnerable with Ian, hard as it was to remember to do, made him feel closer to Ian, closer even than when Ian was inside him. It felt the closest to safe that Mickey had ever been, gay as it sounded, and he should hate that, but he didn't. Fuck should.

Ian sat down next to him. He didn't say anything, but rested a warm hand on Mickey's arm. He breathed in that intentional way they taught him last time he was on the ward, the time he told Mickey he wanted to die and Yev was twelve and staying overnight. 

“Fuck it,” said Mickey. “Let's have ice cream.”

Ian said, “Or we could just stay here,” and for some reason that was it; Mickey was crying.

“Shh,” said Ian. It wasn't _shut up_, it was _there, there_. Pretty early on (embarrassingly early on), they figured out that while Ian could handle all that soothing word garbage, having been raised on it by his touchy-feely sister, “Don't cry” was the wrong thing, the absolute wrong thing to say to Mickey. And “It's okay,” just made him mad. It if were okay, he wouldn't be fucking crying, would he?

The crying didn't last long. Mickey pulled it together enough to look at Ian and Ian looked so worried he had to let out one bitter, wet laugh. “Calm down, hot stuff. Nobody died.”

“What's up, then?” Ian asked. He hadn't let go of Mickey's arm and now he was kinda petting it. 

Mickey liked it. He said, “Yev joining the queer kids club threw me for a loop, is all. Got me thinking about stuff. Remembering. It's fine. I'm just fucked up.”

“I don't know,” said Ian. “We all react differently.”

“Tell me something I don't know,” Mickey muttered, thinking of the look on Ian's face when Yev had told them about the Rainbow thing. He'd grinned so wide and given Yev a fist bump. Then he'd carried the entire conversation while Mickey sat there like a rock crawling with ants. They had dinner together. Like the family they were. And his son was joining the Gay-Straight Alliance.

“No one's gonna mess with him,” said Ian. “Not at that school. Joining the gay club'll probably make him even more popular.”

“I fucking know that.” Mickey took a deep breath. He clenched and unclenched his hands. “I'm not good at explaining this shit.”

“Take your time,” said Ian.

“Oh Jesus,” said Mickey, rolling his eyes. “Are you billing by the hour?”

“I'm pro bono,” said Ian. He kicked off his shoes, scooted closer to Mickey until his head was almost resting against Mickey's shoulder. “Talk.”

Sometimes, when Mickey needed to say something but couldn't figure out how to say it, it felt like there was a tire behind his chest that was being slowly inflated. Either he could let the air out, or it would keep getting bigger and bigger until it blew and ripped him apart. But he'd lost track of where the valve stem was and he couldn't get the cap off and, okay, bullshit metaphor aside, it sometimes felt like it would be easier to let the silence kill him than say one single word.

But he tried, because if he couldn't do it the alternative was he needed more help than even Ian thought, and Ian thought Mickey needed some shrink teaching him how to be a person.

“It's not the Rainbow Club shit,” said Mickey. “I'm not, like, scared or upset or mad about it; why would I be? I fucking love that kid, I'm fucking proud…” He rested his cheek on Ian's head. It might be easier these days to just come out and say that he loved Yevgeny, but it was still hard to spill his guts like this unless he was staring at the wall and not at Ian's big soft eyes. “It just got me thinking about me, about what if I'd wanted to join- But I didn't even want to because I knew I couldn't- Or not even that I couldn't, it was like it didn't exist to me. That kind of thing was around when we were kids but for me it didn't exist. I was on some other planet. And stuff was different back then, it was worse all over, for everyone, with the gay shit, but if we had a Gay-Straight Alliance it was because kids wanted it, right? There were still kids who could go. And I could not only not go, I couldn't even imagine a world where that would be okay.”

“But you love Yev,” said Ian. “And I love Yev. And things _have_ changed.”

“That's what I'm telling you!” Mickey had to look at Ian then, had to make him understand. “Apparently I can't handle my kid's life being less shitty than mine. That's how fucked I am.”

Ian was quiet for a long time, then he cupped Mickey's face in his big hands. Mickey wanted to just dissolve into him. “I don't think that's true.”

“It's fucking true,” said Mickey. “I'm up here crying like a pussy because I'm- And I ain't jealous, 'cause fuck no do I want to go back to high school. It's…” Suddenly the room was too warm. Mickey batted Ian's hands away and lurched to his feet and fumbled for the window. The room filled with cool air. He leaned against the sill.

Ian came up beside him, making plenty of noise, showing his hands. Mickey hated that he noticed, but he did. Hated that Ian had to do stuff like that, but he did.

“You tell Yev any of this?” Ian asked.

“The fuck?”

“I'm just asking.”

Outside, some blocks over, an police car blasted down the street. Silence followed, the kind Mickey still knew how to read. He couldn't turn it off. “Of course I didn't tell Yev any of this. He doesn't need my bullshit. He's a good kid.”

“And you're a good dad.”

Mickey shook his head.

“You're a good dad _now_. It sucks that you didn't have one, but he does. And if his life is different from yours and that makes you sad, well, it's your own damn fault for being so good at loving your kid.” Ian crossed his arms, smug as anything.

Mickey turned and stared. “I'm pretty sure that's not what you're supposed to say.”

Ian moved closer. He sat on the bed. He took Mickey's hand and batted it around between his. “What am I supposed to say, if you're so smart?”

“That it's not my fault, or whatever. That I should stop being so hard on myself.”

“That what you think?”

And the way Ian was looking up at him was so… His eyes were so calm and kind and the lines around them and the dark shadows under them were so familiar and Mickey just loved him, loved him. He pushed Ian back onto the bed and crawled on top of him, resting his head just over Ian's heart. “Not sure I deserve it,” said Mickey. “What kind of guy wishes his son-”

“I don't think you wish Yev's life were any harder,” said Ian, a rumble in his ear. One hand came up to rest, firm and warm, on Mickey's back. “I think you wish your life were easier. I think you're feeling sorry for yourself.”

Okay. This was more like it. “So I should snap out of it?”

“No,” said Ian quickly. He pulled Mickey a little closer, pressed a light kiss to his hairline. “It's more like, cut yourself some slack. Cut your younger self some slack. He was up against a lot. And I really liked him.” 

“Oh is that so?”

Ian groaned. “Stop fishing. Come here.”

Mickey slid up Ian's body until they were face to face. For a while they just stayed like that: the breeze blowing the blinds to clack against the window, the sounds of the faraway El rumbling through the neighborhood. And it wasn't fair, any of it-either Mickey wasn't supposed to have this life, or he didn't deserve his old one-except there wasn't much he would do different. He wouldn't want to live it again, fuck no, or inflict it on anyone else, but-

“Fuck it,” Mickey said. “It got us here, right?”

“Yeah,” said Ian. “It got us right here.”

At some point Mickey fell asleep, and when he woke the room was dark except for a crack of light from the door. Out in the hall, he could here Ian talking to Yev, whispering, boring shit like _brush your teeth_ and _how was your homework_. They creaked up and down the hall. Yev's door closed and opened. Ian did something in the kitchen. The toilet flushed. More footsteps and then they were right outside the door. 

“Night, Ian, love you” said Yev.

“Night, Yev,” said Ian. “Me and your dad are really proud of you.”

Yev groaned and shuffled off down the hall and that was it, that was all, but Mickey started fucking crying again. Only this crying felt different. It was over pretty quick, and it felt like the bottom of the bucket, like he might be finally winding down. It felt good, too. He felt himself smiling. He might be smiling like those dads in insurance commercials, people he always thought must not really exist. Goddamn, what a sap, he thought. What a lucky, lucky sap.

**Author's Note:**

> Get Mickey Milkovich to Therapy 2Kforever. 
> 
> Title inspired by two lines that just gut me: the guy who throws the house party and asks Mickey if he and Ian are together in season four (“You’re a lucky dude”) and the officer who hands baby Yevgeny over in the police station in season five (“You’re a lucky man”). Think it, dream it, be it, manifest it, you side characters. 
> 
> I don’t know whether this is an AU or canon compliant or what, but I gather this fandom doesn’t much care. Let’s call it a future fic for now and we’ll see.


End file.
